Deeper Than Bones
by Child of the Ashes
Summary: No man is an island.


Title: Deeper Than Bones

Summary: No man is an island.

Warning: Language, violence, _slight _non-consent, sort of, maybe. Also possibly spoiler-ish depending on where you are in the manga.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Authorial Notice:

I'm super happy to get this out, even though it took longer to write than I'd hoped. I also cut out a bunch of gore and one-sided fighting from the middle of this that didn't fit the mood. You'll know it when you see it. I hope no one is terribly disappointed.

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The rolling slats of the warehouse door screech to a halt at waist level, and Ichigo freezes.

Orange bangs fall in pieces over his eyes as he glances back, sifting through the shadows. It's a thoughtless reflex. A habit. No one comes to the industrial district at night anymore. There are too many rumors of violent spirits. Too many deranged screams that echo from somewhere within its borders.

He wrenches the outer door closed, hooks the busted padlock through the usual hinge, and crosses the floor. There's a knotted cord hanging before the stairs to the basement and he gives it a tug. Light spills out, cutting the darkness. A guide mark for whoever eventually came looking for him. He doesn't need it to find his way down. Could literally navigate this warehouse with his eyes closed. He'd found that out by doing it.

Wooden steps complain under his feet as he takes them down into the earth. The temperature drops with every step until his breath puffs into small, white clouds.

He moves toward the single, cinderblock office in the back. Its thick, reinforced, steel door emerges from the shadows, yawning wide. It gapes open like a mouth. The room beyond a throat. But he pushes the thought away. It isn't the room that will swallow him here, and he's never been afraid of the dark.

Before he reaches it, the floor bends under his feet as if he's stepped onto a moving escalator without realizing it. He rights himself. Ignores it. It's not real. It's not moving. It's all in his head, so he clamps down on the mental slip and keeps walking.

He pauses outside, kicks dirt around until a piece of old wire surfaces. He lifts the security latch and pushes the wire through the door's crack, balancing the bar with the ease of having done it more times that he can count. The latch was on the inside of the office when he started using the building, but he'd unearthed a tool chest from the refuse that littered shelves and closets. Switching it to the outside hadn't been difficult.

When the wire holds the bar's weight, he steps into the office, closing the door behind him. He pulls it through from the other side.

The bar falls into place with a dense clank, and he's imprisoned inside.

But hearing it isn't good enough. There's no room to relax even a fraction. The monster possesses all his resourcefulness, but doesn't fear any consequence. It's a hell of a combination, and something else he's learned from experience.

All it needs is an opening. The narrowest crack to slip through. The slightest mistake.

He refuses to give it even that.

His heel snaps into the steel door with all the weight he can put behind the strike. It shudders in its frame, but holds. He repeats it twice more to be certain.

Satisfied the bar will do what he intends, he drops his bag to the dusty concrete.

The chains wait where he left them over a month ago, in tangles and scatters across his grubby, makeshift cell. He winds length after length around his forearm and shoulder, inspecting each individual section for damage. There's a warped link toward the end, and he slides the twisted, half-inch joint free to remove the last few feet. There isn't time to find another. Chains strong enough to withstand spiritual pressure like his— even drugged inside a physical body— aren't easy to come by.

As he works, there is a small child that stands in his periphery. It is dressed in white. Its hair is white. Its skin is white. Its eyes are black.

He doesn't look at it, but when he turns to follow his task, it darts away into the darkness behind him.

With deft movements, he slings the coil onto the twisted, mangled remains of the desk and pulls open his bag, taking out a bottle of water and a syringe. He leaves the change of clothes in the bottom for _after_. When someone finds him. When someone _hopefully_ finds him, because sometimes they don't realize he's missing for days. They're getting better at figuring out the timing— or else they've been paying closer attention.

He's sure Chad has developed some sort of radar for his shit-flipping meltdowns, and Inoue was always sensitive to _that_ reiatsu. Uryu is usually out of town. But honestly, he doesn't know what they are aware of. Doesn't plan on asking. He's never so much as breathed a word of this to any of them and it's not something he's penciled onto his calendar.

How could he?

He'd thought his hollow would help protect his friends. But it had never intended anything like that. The bastard had wanted to keep them. Possess them. _Own_ them. It had wanted to take them apart. Like it could figure them out by tearing them down. Or like it thought it could pick' the humanity straight from their bones. In the hollow, every feeling or good intention he has for them is twisted. Taken to frightening extremes.

Their deaths are only unacceptable, because it puts them outside of its reach, and the hollow hates to lose.

The malice it holds toward his friends, his family— _That's not him_. Could never be something Ichigo would feel. That was the deal breaker. The reason he backed out on all those promises made in an emotional moment, when he'd been reeling from betrayal and the peculiar feeling of having everything he'd thought to be true evaporate like a mirage.

Behind his eyes, scenes start to loop like low-quality video feed.

Red is everywhere. Red is his father's corpse. The room. The walls. Too many slashes and cuts to number. More than it would take to kill a person. His body is slumped at a strange angle, propped up by whatever is attached to the small limb that pokes from beneath. As the movie takes him closer, he sees a head of blond hair smudged with more red. Ichigo thinks he should move his father's heavy body off her, but he's distracted.

There is a soccer ball resting at the landing to the stairs, marred with a single, smeared handprint. Beyond it, a hand.

He takes a sharp breath, startled motionless.

His other half is frightfully creative when it's pushed. A hollow scorned. An exhibitionist craving attention.

But it's not real. Not real. It Isn't. He's sure of it. He kissed both his sisters before he left. Didn't he? He's sure he did.

It plays again, and he's less sure.

Ichigo swallows the bile burning a path up his throat, shakes his thoughts free with a violence that makes him sway on his feet. Doesn't matter. There's not anyone here to see, and if he has any dilutions left about his fragile mental state, the hollow is shattering them, one after the next.

His throat aches, eyes glaring at nothing visible as he works.

"Spiteful, fucking bastard—"

His voice cuts, so he stops speaking, swallows. But even that small, hissed comment is enough to draw it closer to the surface, to start it scratching harder at the back of his mind. It knows what's coming. He has its full attention now. Can feel hands that run like phantom pains up his front, his sides, they stop when they've wrapped around his neck.

Ichigo doesn't flinch at the echoing laugh that tickles his ear. It only pushes him to move faster. His brow tightens at the added concentration to keep it pushed back and down until he's finished. He's made it wait longer this time, and he can feel the feverish irritation feeding it. Like a promise of all the exquisite pain it's saved for him.

A whisper he can't make out tickles his ear. Still laughing at him. Laughing because it's making him play its dumb games.

Fucker.

His skin itches. It feels tight and hot.

It would be easy to slice it open, to escape—

He shakes his head again, hand drifting up to clench in his bangs. The pain pulls him back to the filthy room, re-anchors his feet to the floor. Not his thought. He has to remind himself sometimes. Sometimes, he's less certain than others, and on the outside, he doesn't have the color of his shihakusho to help him tell who he is.

It's not always that way. But things get confusing during the switch. All those thoughts so close to the surface. They all start to sound like his.

He needs to hurry.

Ichigo drains half the bottle of water and shoves the rest back into the bag in case he ends up stuck down here. He holds the syringe in his mouth, zips the bag closed and tosses it to the opposite corner before letting the needle fall into his palm. The cap is flicked off and skitters across the floor. Before he can rethink the action, he stabs it deep into his thigh. The unpleasant cocktail flows from the tip, shoots under his skin. He's glad he won't be the one getting its full, very ugly, backlash. That's a privilege for his volatile other half.

Drained, the empty syringe follows the bag to the corner and he starts the process of looping chain through the series of eyebolts mounted into the wall, plated and fastened with rivets larger than his index finger.

The timing is close. He can get into the chains in under two minutes if pressed, but the drugs hit fast.

So stupid, so fucking _stupid_ to put this off so long.

There are reasons, of course. A massive course final, a farewell dinner for Tatsuki before she becomes some world-famous fighter, his sisters' graduation. Not that any of it will sway the hollow to sympathy.

He crosses his arms over his chest like an invisible straight jacket and then twists his head to pull the leather strap of the last cuff tight with his teeth. It tingles where it touches his flesh, charged and unpleasant.

Releasing a trapped breath, he slides to the ground.

His head swirls at the movement, the floor coming up faster than expected.

He hasn't chained his legs. There won't be time now. If the concoction swimming through his veins does its work, it won't matter, but… he doesn't…

Thought soars away on a tidal wave of nausea.

He gags, swallowing it back, taking large gulps of air.

There's no light except the faint glow from the stairs piercing through the cracks of the door and along the poorly constructed ceiling, but his vision is clear in the dark room. Another sure sign his hollow is close.

He's so tired. Tired of the lies. Tired of the fighting. Maybe he should just let it happen. Let the hollow have its head and tear the world apart. It's going to happen sooner or later anyway. It'll win. The hollow is _tireless_. And it—

"_Stop it!"_ Ichigo slams his head back into the wall and pain bursts behind his eyes. He can feel it recoil as he snarls. "I didn't say you could come out yet. Don't try that manipulation bullshit!"

Unexpected pain lances up his spine. It forces him to arch away from the wall, and he doesn't know if it's the drugs or his hollow until it twists into the searing, visceral pleasure the other's power always brings. A dark sea of reiatsu, bottomless and heavy, pulling him further into its cloying grasp. He fights back a moan, eyes squeezing shut as his skin becomes fire in the aftermath. The sticky warmth of blood flowing through his hair stops, heals in the space of a strangled breath.

No use fighting any longer. This is supposed to happen, _needs_ to happen. It is why he's here. Has to let go.

**Time to pay up, king.**

It's pure stubborn pride that makes him growl in response. They both know how this will end, but he hates when it talks to him this way. Sounding so close that he thinks he should be able to turn his head and see it standing over his shoulder. It rattles him. Makes him feel as crazy and unhinged as he is.

Closing his eyes, Ichigo tries to relax, but it's hard to release control after clenching it so tightly for so long.

The floor tips and rolls beneath him as if the room has been dropped into turbulent water. Cold, icy water, and he can't stop the sudden trembling in his limbs. Or it might be the transition from the outside in, because the next thing he knows is the cool press of polished cement against his face.

His eyes flutter open.

Black clad feet fill his vision, the inverse of his own.

Ichigo sits up and blinks, trying to force his head clear. The pressure of his limbs attempting to act outside his control is gone. The pain in his head is gone. He almost relaxes.

"You're late."

There are entire days where his hollow reminds him of the blue haired, ex-espada of destruction. All savage grins and psychotic laughter and blood-soaked blades. Other times, it's almost like a little kid, almost _naive_. If being a kid could include bursts of temper that level city blocks.

Today, the hollow is pacing, white sword held in a loose grip, scraping Ichigo with a fierce, molten glare every time it turns.

Why is it here? More often that not, the hollow goes on a rampage on the outside, trying everything it can to get free before returning to take its wrath out on Ichigo for locking it away during its promised release.

He flinches at the dark pulse of reiatsu, sharp and caustic, snapping his attention back to the impatient creature pacing in front of him. White cloth billows around a lithe frame as it moves, stalking with a grace that should be belied by its violent and unpredictable nature.

It wants a response.

Ichigo scowls and stands. "This might come as a shock to you, but we have a life to live—"

"_You _have a life to live."

The resentment and temper batter at him. They take a toll on his spiritual body. The fight hasn't even started and he already feels drained.

He lets the point slip, because he hadn't intended to say any such thing in the first place.

"Fine. _I _have a life to live," he says, looking over his shoulder, checking for the only missing figure. It is an old habit. He knows he won't find anyone else here.

Fingers graze his throat, and Ichigo reacts before he can check the response. His hand comes up, smacking the hollow's elbow at the joint and knocking the brutal grip away before it begins. But his white counterpart doesn't leap away, and Ichigo's pride can't stand letting him be the first one to back down, so they stand, chest to chest, as it flings words at point blank range.

"Never again, will I tell you to get out of my way. Remember that, partner?"

He tacks on the not-quite endearment as if he thinks Ichigo has forgotten in the last five minutes that they are forever stapled together.

Colorless lips smile, somewhere between a grin and a leering smirk. It doesn't reach black and gold eyes. Those eyes are sharp and unamused. They reveal nothing.

"You lied, king. You're a liar."

Ichigo's hands are clenched by his side, but he somehow keeps from moving. Mouth pressed into a tight line, he stares back, forces himself to meet that knife-like gaze. The hollow doesn't bring this up often. Ichigo wills him to get to the point and get it all over with.

The hollow begins a slow circle. "I held up my end. You've been getting my power for ages. And what do you give in return? Some free time in a hole you fixed up to keep me trapped. And you can't even keep to _that_." It moves behind him, out of sight.

Ichigo tries not to think about what a sword will feel like stabbing through his spine. He lets his gaze slip to the vague sunset peeking over the top of the next building. It shouldn't be possible for the sun to set under water. Possible never meant much for him.

"You'd be _dead_ without me."

He swallows, eyes tightening, unable to deny a single word. It all true. He doesn't have a defense for his actions. Fear, maybe, but he'd never admit to it and the hollow would never accept it. This is an old dance between them. More of a reminder of a debt owed than anything. The hollow's way of waving around the IOU Ichigo scripted the moment he broke their agreement.

He sighs. "What do you want?"

There is no reason to ask. He knows what it wants. Restitution paid in flesh. And the hollow knows it will get it. He doesn't resist the pale hand a second time as it closes around his neck and throws him to the ground.

…

Ichigo pants. His head lolls over crushed and bloodied debris while he tries to find his breath and tune out the pain of fresh wounds. They don't matter. The damage is superficial at best. Torn, cut, bruised flesh is already healing.

The hollow has spent the majority of his frustration, and moves to slower tortures. Questions. Truths. Memories. There are a thousand things more painful to Ichigo than physical injury. The hollow knows every pet scar he hides. Each person Ichigo has buried and locked away forever. He doesn't fight back or try to defend himself. Not once. Nothing that might be seen as having control. The one promise he manages to keep, and it's this. Figures.

He wants to laugh as the irony catches up to him, but the attempt is nothing more than a stuttered scrape of air from a raw throat.

The hollow laughs instead. Gold eyes glitter when they fall back to Ichigo, but without the biting edge. His white copy has worked itself into a good mood with all the earlier violence. It's almost never this content.

"Losing yourself this soon?" He crouches by Ichigo, head tilted to the side as he studies his liege's face. The incarnation of his white blade is stabbed into the building behind him. "You should have listened to me. You know that, king? I would've gotten us everything you ever wanted."

This again.

Pretty words meant to make him doubt.

Ichigo glares up, anger putting force into a voice that's still too gravelly. "Gotten what I wanted…? Bastard, all I wanted was my family, my friends, safe..."

His voice trails away as fingers slip into his hair, the strokes so affectionate he can't help bracing for pain, because it's a trap, trap, _trap_.

"And didn't I keep them alive?"

That haunting voice is so close to being comforting.

Ichigo doesn't trust it even for an instant.

He shakes his head to get away from the lulling, deceptive touch. "We've got different definitions of what that means! You'd stuff them into cages if you got the chance. Just for your twisted amusement."

The hollow answers with his insane laugh, not the least bit bothered that Ichigo doesn't want to be touched. He doesn't even _try_ to deny the charge. Looks proud of it.

"Think how much easier they'd be to protect if they couldn't wander off out of sight."

Ichigo wants to choke him.

This idle chatter, it disguises the lethal back and forth pull of their nature. Like still water, it appears shallow on the surface. But even one false step is too many. A swell in the ocean is a tsunami on shore.

He says nothing.

The hollow sighs. The echo sends a shiver down Ichigo's spine as fingers go back to stroking. He's certain it does it just to unsettle him. Like Ichigo is some wild animal he's caught that will be tamed with a few gentle touches.

It takes all his willpower not to slap that maddening hand away. Instead, he lays still, glaring murder, telling himself to stop complaining, because if the infuriating bastard wants to waste his time spouting gibberish and petting him like a fucking dog, it's his stupid choice. And that's fucking _fine_ with him. Better than getting cut to pieces with his own sword.

"Ichigo."

The hollow hardly ever uses his name.

He stiffens at the sound of it, rolling off an azure tongue as if it's a deep secret. Maybe it is. There is so much intent packed into those few syllables, no one that couldn't step inside his soul, that couldn't slide under his skin would ever understand all the unspoken vows that exist between them.

The hand tightens in his hair until he can hear strands snap, until his scalp throbs and aches. Ichigo hisses at the sting, berating himself for being thrown by such a simple thing, realizing later than he should that the hollow is closer than a few seconds before.

He goes still, uncertain about the implications of the look clouding its dark eyes.

"You're the one that did this to us. Made sure I couldn't touch anyone but you. This is what you wanted, ya don't get to bitch about it now."

He gives Ichigo's hair another harsh tug, dissolving into a mocking smile.

Ichigo hardly feels it. Something it said earlier surfaces and connects, the random dots of the hollow's abstract thoughts piecing together. The comments always seem so casual, all its flippant jabs never making sense in anything other than retrospect, but that almost sounds…

"What the... What the hell is that supposed to mean!? Is this— Do you—You think you're _helping_ me!?"

The hollow's smirk drains away, gold eyes narrowing. As if it's calculating whether Ichigo could actually be stupid enough to need an answer to the question. Ichigo doesn't know if he should be relieved or irritated, when the hollow seems to determine he does need to be told.

It leans down over him until they are sharing air, longer pieces of colorless hair falling to brush his face.

"When you want a pat on the head, ya go to those friends of yours."

Ichigo swallows. Every muscle is tight with apprehension.

"So they can tell you how _strong_ you are, what a _hero_ you are. How there's _nothing _you can't do." A sneer twists his face before it is gone again, replaced by a snickering laugh that is at once the rattle of old bones and the luring pull of the ocean. "Ya come to me, when you need to hurt."

Ichigo jerks.

That isn't true. _Can't_ be true.

The hollow holds his gaze and he can't look away.

Once, when he was nine, after his mother died, Ichigo tried climbing onto the roof of the clinic. He's not sure what made him think of it or why he didn't realize the danger. All he remembers is that he wanted to be alone. He didn't make it to the top the first time. The window ledge was slick, and his heavy soled high-tops weren't meant for climbing.

It felt as if he fell forever.

The ground, padded with grass and soft from the rain, absorbed the fall. Still, he had lain there in pain, feeling like his lungs had disappeared, fighting to breathe, fighting to call for help, fighting to make his limbs work so he could run to his mother before remembering that she was dead, and he would never be able to run to her again.

He feels like that now. Lost. Adrift. Completely ungrounded.

"Shut up," he gasps.

His heart is pounding at his breastbone. He shakes his head and tries to pull away, even though he's pressed flat into the concrete. It doesn't matter either way. There is no place he can go that this nightmare can't follow.

His white self releases orange hair to slide the hand around to his exposed throat, licking pale lips, savoring his triumph, snatching at this newly uncovered weakness.

"You want it," it hisses through a smile. "Need to be punished for being such a bad friend, a bad brother, a bad son. All those people that died because you weren't strong enough, fast enough, _good _enough..." It's breath comes fast, excited. The hollow is panting with elation, gold eyes manic. "And no one— _no one—_ can hurt you like I do."

The hollow forces its full weight on him, holding him down, squeezing his neck.

His stomach twists, but it isn't the disgust he expects that surges over him. Heat spikes through his groin, dragging him into the dark depths of his hollow's twisted hunger. How can it do this? Make him feel these things?

"N-no," he grates out around its fingers. As much a denial to the accusation as what he is feeling.

It isn't the first time the hollow has attempted using mindless lust as a tactic. Ichigo has mostly succeeded in ignoring it, but he's never been this shaken. In these moments, the respite of slipping into mindless desire calls like a sweet wind.

He can almost _see_ it through the bastard's eyes. The craving. The fight. The struggle of it. The hollow has him strung out on a hurt so slight in comparison to the yawning agony of guilt that normally eats him, it's closer to relief. Like an alcoholic. A drug addict. Like a cutter that hasn't left marks anyone can find.

He feels sick.

The hollow snickers, chasing the thought through his head, reminding him there aren't any secrets between them. At least for him. Ichigo has no desire to hear the hollow's twisted opinions. Doesn't want to understand _any_ of this.

The hollow grins, tilting its head, golden eyes shaded with wicked delight. "You addicted to me, king?"

"_No_."

"What did I tell you about lying?" He digs sharp, black claws into Ichigo's stomach.

Ichigo clenches his teeth and bites back a cry, forcing himself to take steady breaths through his nose as they sink deeper. "Even if… I believed you… why would you help me?"

It grows impatient and tears away the front of his coat. The dig of claws disappears, is replaced by fingerpads slick with blood, painting nonsensical pictures that tense abdominal muscles every bit as much as nails.

Ichigo waits, biting back the sounds that threaten as it works over sensitive flesh. Drawing, writing. In a moment of curiosity, he pulls an elbow under him, leans forward to see, but the hollow lashes out, backhanding him hard enough that he sees starbursts and lays sprawled, stunned by the force.

"No peeking. 'M not finished yet."

Ichigo chokes on a mouthful of blood. "B-Bastard…"

The hollow dips his finger into a scratch mark to rewet his ink, sketching kanji upside down and backward up Ichigo's chest. "Ya play with a blade and get surprised when it cuts. Stupid king."

Ichigo shivers, working to draw breaths that don't hitch as the hollow exploits every dip and curve with carmine ink. He closes his eyes at some point to concentrate on the cooling, sticky feeling, and not the more enjoyable, sweep of hands trailing fire and enough electrical reiatsu to short-circuit his already questionable defenses.

This is just another way to break him down. The hollow is waiting for him to relax so it can catch Ichigo unaware. At the moment, he doesn't care. He wants more. More pressure. More intensity. More skin brushing skin and teeth scraping flesh.

It scares him really.

The overwhelming pull of pain mingling with pleasure in such a dangerous way. How it is his hollow forcing this response from him.

But it's a lie. The hollow is _making_ him feel this way. Coercing fake emotions.

Ichigo wonders if he could do the same if he tried. If it would be as easy for him to compel the hollow. And why couldn't he? Puppet strings go both ways. If the hollow can tug him any direction at will, he should be able to tug back. He's always shied away from exerting control, feels like an ass when it forces him to do so. But what if it wanted that?

"You think too much."

Teeth close on the heated skin over his heart and he jerks, gasping. His eyes jump to meet the hollow's, it's mouth pressed to his skin.

It sits back and hums, admiring its work.

Ichigo hesitates, the side of his face still stinging… then lifts his head to look down.

The raised welts of teeth marks catch his attention first, but then he sees the circle of red around them— an eerie parody of a hollow hole etched around his heart. Flashes of memory flick through his mind. A hunger that never ceases. Falling forever into darkness. He shakes it off, sees the tendrils of red twisting away from the outside of the circle, winding upward. He ignores those, not wanting to remember enough to recognize them.

Then he notices the words, written upside down and backwards so he can read them easily from his vantage. His limbs fill with sand, weighed down. He can't move when he sees the answer to the question he's almost forgot he asked.

_I am you._

The sensation is like standing on shifting ice.

"Get off me!" He snarls, hands coming up to shove the hollow away. "Get off me!"

The hollow is ready for it, wrenches his arms to the side, trapping one beneath his knee and the other over Ichigo's head. That doesn't keep Ichigo from spitting every venomous curse he can think of. He doesn't care if they make sense or not. He can't believe he let this bastard _touch_ him!

It forces their lips together, eats his cries of desperation, swallows every infuriated curse and plea, growling in satisfaction.

He can hear the splintering cracks around them. Small at first like the tinkle of glass, then growing. The fissures grow until the sound of them is deafening in his ears. The thunderous cracks of a cleaving building.

Ichigo thrashes, struggles, bucks to get free.

It's getting off on it. Feeding on his distress to get some sick fulfillment. But it wants him aware. A quick hand reaches up and yanks Ichigo's head to the side by the same sore patch of hair, attempting to startle him from his wild terror. He only fights harder as it pulls his head back to force its way back inside his mouth, dragging harsh strokes over his tongue, jerking away before Ichigo can act on the hysterical impulse to bite down.

He doesn't know why he can't control himself. They're just stupid words. They mean nothing. _Nothing_.

_But_...

_But_... what if it's right? And that doubt _razes_ him. The hollow is in his mouth. Creeping under his skin. He can't breathe. He's under water and no matter how hard he kicks, he can't find the surface.

Teeth scrape down his throat, sinking in to his collarbone until the hollow is nothing but the searing sharpness of ripping skin.

It makes a pleased sound, a low rumble Ichigo feels all the way to his toes as it grinds down hard into his hips. Its stiff member prods below his navel when Ichigo arches, back bowing from the concrete.

The bastard. It knows what it's doing to him. It knows every cheap fabrication Ichigo scrambles to hold onto as the world breaks around them.

But the lies he's stacked around himself are as tenuous as a house of cards. The hollow has been playing tea party with him, letting him keep his illusions and sugar spun half-truths, smiling sweetly all the while.

It isn't playing any longer.

The hollow intends to take him apart.

It survives on what feels good. Follows every twisted impulse. Every facet of its half of their power is either sickeningly pleasurable or excruciating. Never any in-betweens. Even disgusted. Even frantic with the need to escape. Ichigo can't help but shudder at the hunger that pours into him.

He feels it smile against his skin.

"Tell ya a secret," it whispers, grinding harder into him, until he can't suppress the moan, the trembling flexing of his fingers. "You'll never know the depths of anything until you've seen it break. Til you've taken it apart down to its foundation."

The building under them shakes. He is shaking.

"No..."

The hollow sits up to look at him, eyes narrowed. It ignores the distant crumble of mile-high skyscrapers.

"You said it before. When you cross blades with someone, you feel them. It's the same thing. Every time your blade touches theirs, you're dragging my claws down a piece of their soul."

He tilts his head, smile turning dark.

The tie at Ichigo's waist pulls free. Tearing fabric scratches his ears, and the hollow flings black cloth into the wind, letting it flutter away in the lashing, underwater gale.

"Ya like it, don't you?" it asks. Tells. "Using me that way."

He knows what's happening, but his body is so heavy that lifting an arm seems as impossible as reaching out and touching the sun.

The hollow closes a hand around him, grasping the flesh that's been hard since the first surge of molten spiritual pressure, and Ichigo chokes on a sobbing gasp. Wants to slip away into unconsciousness until it's over. The hollow isn't as kind as that. He forces Ichigo to take pleasure in what he hates.

The hollow's cut all the safety nets, and he is flying toward the ground.

"I know every crack and scar of you. You can't hide from me, Ichigo. I'm always sitting over your shoulder, crawling in your veins."

He squeezes his eyes closed.

It takes a long moment to place the burning acid that lights in his stomach. The emotion seems alien in this place where only terror exists.

But it's anger.

And anger is so much better than uncertainty. He snatches at it, cinches it tighter than the control he's lost.

"No," he whispers.

The hollow cocks its head, then frowns.

He sees its shocked expression, the moment it realizes something has shifted, that it's pushed too far. The hand clenched on his erection releases, almost flinging itself away. Gold eyes dart toward the blade still buried ten inches into concrete yards away. He knows it doesn't have to touch it to call it.

But the hollow's head is turned away and Ichigo strikes out. Not with pinned hands. He reaches along that place deep inside where they will always be connected and yanks.

The hollow gasps, jarred and in pain. Ichigo tears his hands free and throws it off.

He's stronger than it is. The realization hits him so hard. It's as if the hollow has become weightless.

Frustrated irritation crosses its face.

Ichigo has never been the type of person that was able to enjoy someone else's pain. But he doesn't stop when he hears things pop in its wrist. Doesn't stop until it's pinned face down, one white arm twisted, on the verge of an impossible angle.

Doing this, forcing submission from it shouldn't feel this satisfying. But when had the bastard once taken it easy on him? Never. His fingers dig deeper into lithe muscle, nails scraping trails until he's sure it will bruise and leave marks. The thought only makes his grip tighten, jaw locked tight. He wants this creature subdued. Acknowledging him instead of the other way around.

This is _his_ hollow.

It has terrified and abused him in every way imaginable. He refuses to feel guilt. Refuses to feel anything as he compresses his rage down to a razor blade edge.

Even in control, a fine tremor runs through him, his skin flushed and hot.

It's restrained beneath him. How could it be so easy? This is the creature that consumes him. That breaks him daily, and it's brought down so easily at first he thinks it must be a trick.

The hollow's snarling drops to harsh panting. The side of its head pressed into the ground in a position of subservience. As if it's kneeling by choice instead of coercion. He's pleased with the thought. It makes sense. He's won. It _should_ be kneeling before him. Why has he been the one cowering? It will never fulfill those ludicrous threats.

This brute force. This pain. It's the only thing the hollow understands.

"You want to see something break?" He jerks the white hakama away, hands shaking so hard he almost loses his grip. "You want to see something come undone?" he hisses. "I can help with that. Why not? You helped me, right?" He twists the arm until it's grinding against the joint and then further, further until the hollow snarls and hisses at the pain, unable to hold it in. He gives it a ghost of its own smirk. "Isn't nice how we can share these things?"

He doesn't sound like himself. His voice is low and raw, choked with emotion.

The hollow watches him, licks its lips, and he leans in close, gives an ugly laugh he doesn't feel and a smile that cuts.

"What's wrong? I thought you wanted to know your king?" It's the first time he's called himself this way. There is a visible tremble in the creature below him. He thinks he should feel disgusted. Instead, he feels free, powerful.

He can't seem to stop.

In this position, one hand gripping the back of its neck, the other its wrist, his hard flesh digs into the hollow from behind, and he's the one pressing forward for more friction. He thinks to flip it on its back, so he can see its face. He wants to know it gets this, that it understands that he can be cruel too, but his hollow is vicious, even restrained it would tear him bloody, so he stays cold and technical. Business. Tells himself its business as he leans forward and bites down on the shell of its ear until it hisses and strains under him.

"Don't you fucking move," he snarls.

He sees the pale brow twitch at him as he releases its arm, the hold on the back of its neck tightening, but it doesn't move.

His nails leave bloody welts in its hip. When he takes it hard from behind, without warning, it makes a choked sound of pain he's never heard from it.

Ichigo shivers.

The hollow is saying something, growling either encouragement or biting off vicious insults, but he can't even make it out over the rush of blood in his ears. He presses his face into the cloth over its back for a second, drags one deep breath after another, then thrusts again. And again. He takes the hollow harder. Faster. Rougher.

Its cries of pain and lust scrape down his spine as delicious as a cold feather over too hot skin.

This is a different kind of addiction. One he could sink into without a backward glance.

And then, he's so fucking close, but it's not enough. It won't ever be enough. He slides an arm around its throat from behind, uses it to pull the hollow back against the force of his rutting. His pace is uneven, brutal, and it's still not enough.

He closes his hand around a knee and flips it on its back, and there's so little resistance now. Even the fingers rasping deep into flesh seem to pull him closer. Wind him tighter.

He slaps a hand flat against the building and looks down to the place they're joined. There's so much blood that he winces, biting back a choked groan as the hollow tightens around him and clamps down with every burst of its release.

White-hot flames rend and sear nerves. They batter him, cold then hot, the pressure nearly too much to bear. All that reiatsu crashing between them. He gives a muffled sob when he comes, teeth sinking down into the joint of its neck and shoulder. His throat is raw, his hands sore from their brutal grip. All his strength drains so fast he collapses to his arms, panting and looking at the creature beneath him.

Never did he imagine that kind of response from this monster.

He thought he'd feel better, but he doesn't. He's still all wrong inside, prickling and unsatisfied. Where is the blissful after effect? The heavy peace? There's nothing. He feels just as empty and sick. And still angry. Only now, he doesn't really know who to be angry with.

The hollow's perfect white skin and hair are bloodstained and maimed. Some of its threatening edge chipped away. Guilt chaffs his conscience. There's a look he's never seen on its face. Somewhere between wariness and pride.

He jerks his eyes away.

Ichigo pulls back, adjusts himself, tired beyond logical sense. He needs to leave. Needs to get out of here. This bastard is impossible. Even when it loses it's like it's won.

"Why did you tell me all that?" he mutters.

The hollow quite nearly rolls its inverted eyes.

If it'd been him, he would be scrambling to hold onto his hemorrhaging dignity. The hollow doesn't seem to care way or the other. He doesn't bother standing, just sits sprawled on the ground, propped back on his arms. Like this sort of thing happens every other day, and he's already bored with it.

"Because you couldn't do a thing without me."

Ichigo scowls and stands, growling a reflexive "bullshit," as he turns to tie himself back into his clothing. "I get how this works now. I won't give in to you again. I hate you."

It smirks, but offers nothing in return.

He can tell that the terms of their agreement have changed again. This almost-truce is unnerving.

"Whatever," he huffs. Finished, he doesn't look back, waits a heartbeat before shaking his head. "One month. No more hounding me with those fucking hallucinations."

He twists his head over his shoulder to find the hollow gone. He blinks, looks around, but it's nowhere. Cutting out right when he's about to say something not completely hostile. That fucking—

But what did he expect? A polite farewell? Well wishes? No chance.

Maybe their situation hasn't changed after all.

He scowls and puffs out a breath, feeling the phantom brush of teeth over the skin of his heart as he leaves his inner world behind.

Spiteful bastard.

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